Cineconcert Buster Keaton

Students and alumni of all ages will enjoy this special film and concert event. Greene, Founder and Director of the Peacherine Ragtime Orchestra Society, will perform a live score for Buster Keaton’s 1927 classic, College (66 minutes). Keaton, the master of physical comedy, stars as a bookish college student who tries to win the heart of the girl of his dreams by becoming an athlete. After the film, enjoy a half-hour program of school-themed ragtime music.

The fun of a Buster Keaton movie is enjoying the “mildly amusing” and sometimes flat out hilarious physical gags Keaton manages to pull off, oftentimes in one take. “In “College,” for example, Keaton is the coxswain of a rowing team who manages to overturn and sink his crew’s boat.” Keaton is the father of physical comedy, so if you’ve enjoyed 22 Jump Street, you owe it to yourself to watch one of its very first forerunners.

Limited space; pick up free tickets beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the Portrait Gallery’s G Street lobby. This program is jointly presented by the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum.